Trinity's Mason, Southwestern's Jackson Headline Women's Golf Postseason Awards

Trinity's Mason, Southwestern's Jackson Headline Women's Golf Postseason Awards

SUWANEE, Ga. -- Following exclusive voting by the head coaches and sports information directors of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference (SCAC), the league office today announced the 2024 women's golf postseason award winners. 2024 All-SCAC Women's Golf Team

After winning the program's fourth consecutive SCAC team title and posting the league's best finish at the NCAA Championships since 2013, Trinity University was rewarded with two of the three major conference postseason awards as Jessica Mason was selected the league's Player of the Year and Tiger head coach Shelby DeVore was named Coach of the Year. In that same balloting, Southwestern University's Sydney Jackson was chosen Freshman of the Year.

Mason, a sophomore from Westminster, Colorado, was the league’s lone All-American, earning Second Team honors by the Women’s Golf Coaches Association (WCA) last month. She earned First Team All-SCAC honors in April at the SCAC Championships after finishing in a tie for second at White Bluff Golf Resort, firing rounds of 79 (+7), 74 (+2) and 80 (+8) to finish at 233 (+17). Her three-day score of 233 is tied for the third-best 54-hole performance in SCAC history. Mason finished the SCAC Championships tied for third with four made birdies and tied for fourth with 33 pars.

Over the course of the 2023-24 season, the super sophomore, who finished the season as the 13th-ranked women’s golfer in Division III, posted four top three-three finishes in 10 events, including victories at the Texas Cup and West Region Invitational. The seventh-ranked player in the region, Mason finished the year with an impressive adjusted scoring average of 73.1.

At the 2024 NCAA Division III Women’s Golf Championship at Keene Run Golf Course in Nicholasville, Kentucky, Mason finished in a tie for eighth individually in the 150-player field and led Trinity with a total score of 297 (77-74-72-74). Her finish was the best individual SCAC finish at the National Championship since Southwestern’s Kelsey Coburn finished in a tie for seventh at the 2013 Championships.

Mason is the third consecutive and fifth overall Trinity women’s golfer to earn SCAC Golfer of the Year honors. Her teammates, Kiona Hsiu and Alejandra Sanchez De la Fuente Molino took home the league’s top honor in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

Southwestern’s Jackson, a first-year from The Woodlands, Texas was the top rookie finisher at the 2024 SCAC Championships back in April, earning Second Team honors after posting a three-day total of 239 to claim seventh. She finished tied for second in the SCAC Championship field with 34 pars and her 4.50 par-4 scoring average was tied for fifth. She closed out her collegiate debut season, ranked 191st nationally and 58th in the region after a pair of top-10 finishes in eight events and an adjusted scoring average of 80.1.

Jackson is the second consecutive and third overall Southwestern women’s golfer to earn SCAC Freshman of the Year honors. Her teammate Isabella Valenzuela secured the honor a year ago, while the Pirates’ Leilani McDaniel earned the accolade following the 2016-17 season.

DeVore earned her third SCAC Coach-of-the-Year honor in as many seasons after returning to lead the Trinity program she starred on as a player from 2015 to 2018. This season, she led the Tigers to another wire-to-wire 58-shot victory at the 2024 conference championships. This year's winning margin is the fourth-largest in SCAC women's golf tournament history and the most for the Tigers during their current four-year winning streak. Their winning score of 934 is the lowest three round women's score in league history - 12 shots better than the three-day total of 946 shot by the Centre College women at the 2012 championships - the last year the league had a 54-hole tournament for the women prior to this year's event.

The Tigers finished with a team-high 15 birdies over the 54 holes and posted 160 pars en route to their fourth consecutive title. Trinity is just the second program in conference history to win four-straight titles, joining former member DePauw University who won five consecutive crowns from 2002-06. For the TU Tigers, this marks the eighth SCAC title in program history (1995, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2021, 2022, 2023), tying them with Southwestern for the most women’s golf titles in league history.

A month later, the No. 13 Tigers finished 11th at the NCAA Division III Championships. Trinity posted a total score of 1,240 over the four rounds of play, climbing up from a tie for 17th after the opening round to the best finish in program history at the conclusion of the week, besting the 16th-place finish in the program's first appearance at the event last season.

The Coach of the Year honor is the third in DeVore’s career and eighth in Trinity women’s golf history.

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